


look what you've done to me

by dandelionslute



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Dark!Jaskier, Fae!Jaskier, M/M, creature!Jaskier, post episode 6
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:02:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23373613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionslute/pseuds/dandelionslute
Summary: Jaskier can't ignore who he really is, and Geralt's not sure he can either.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 40
Kudos: 342





	1. part one

**Author's Note:**

> So someone wanted some feral fae!jaskier post e06, and it has become this. Enjoy!  
> I'm predicting this will have 5 chapters, but it could be one more or less. <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after The Mountain Breakup in E06.

He travels, all alone, all the way from Hengfors to Toussaint, without the sound of a lute behind him, nor the smell of lilacs ahead. Just himself atop Roach, who occasionally croons a gentle nicker, as if calling her foals, and he can do nothing else but pat her mane and say _I know_. The journey takes him weeks, months maybe - what was the point of keeping track when he wasn’t counting down a calendar of how many days a mortal man might have left beside him.

He takes a few small contracts in equally small towns as he travels aimlessly towards the city of Beauclair. He’s not sure why he chose Toussaint as his next destination, but it seemed like the path of least resistance at the time. And the one in the furthest direction from Oxenfurt, which is most certainly where Jaskier would have made haste to.

As he travels further south, through the vineyards of Castle Ravello and Sansretour Valley, he begins to hear whispers. He hears talk of missing grain and cattle, tools and weapons. Of farmers from humble beginnings who suddenly find good fortune; horribly ill men seemingly cured overnight; women who were thought never to bare children now embracing slowly swelling bellies. And none of these seemed like particularly bad things, but the closer he gets to town, the more people he encounters, and the more unpleasant the whispers become.

Like the apprentice herbalist who ventured into the Caroberta Woods for Bloodmoss and spent three days trudging in circles, forever walking towards the signpost that would guide her back to town, and finding it to be gone every time she stepped too close. Or the tale of a barkeep, not a man of noble quality by any means, who fell suddenly ill with disease although being a healthy man the day before.

And more distressingly, the stories of three women who disappeared with naught but the clothes on their back; the mutterings of a baby stolen from its crib less than two moons after its birth; the handsome blacksmith who had fallen unconscious and died within a day, leaving behind a grieving wife who had no explanation for her husband’s sudden passing.

By the time Geralt reaches town, he’s fairly certain he knows the creature responsible for the strange happenings in Beauclair. Every story he’d heard, every piece of evidence left behind, all lead to one thing. The sudden fortune and misfortune, the stealing of goods, the missing women who worked as town midwives, the stolen newborn baby, and the dug up grave of the blacksmith that revealed a crudely carved wooden replica laying in the space where a body should be, made it fairly apparent that there could be no other creature to blame - Fae.

Fae were decidedly complicated creatures. While they were capable of bestowing continual health and good fortune upon those who won their favour, they could also be cruel and brutish to those who did not. They could heal or cause illness and injury; borrow items on good faith or steal them away. They could glamour humans to see beautiful landscapes of running streams and frolicking deer, or they could disguise familiar settings and send people running lost in the woods for their own amusement.

They were not always forthcoming when entering into deals, and they were known to steal humans for both purpose and non-purpose. Geralt was not particularly fond of them, although he did not consider them to be monsters entirely. Some Fae lived in secrecy and rarely interacted with the human world; keeping to themselves or only offering fair and good trades. The Fae terrorising Beauclair, however, was not one of them. And Geralt did not intend to let it wreak havoc for much longer.

He speaks to the herbaalist, and the barkeep, and the blacksmith's grieving wife, and they can tell him little to no detail about the appearance of the Fae. He's not surprised, assuming the Fae has used its glamour ability to hide its identity behind blurry details or make them forget entirely. It makes hunting the Fae a little more difficult, but Geralt was up for the challenge. It would be a good distraction to keep his mind clear of certain bards, and Roach would be able to rest in town for at least a few days.

And as Geralt heads deeper into the forest, following toadstool mushrooms and a sweet smell he can't place, he feels like he's being watched. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of the lore here is based on Irish Fae lore. Just FYI.


	2. part two

He walks the western trail down the side of the mountain, and the hardened rocks of clay crumble beneath his feet just like his heart does in his chest. He trips on a root crawling its way across the treacherous path and falls to his hands and knees, and he screams.

How many years, decades, _lifetimes_ , had he spent doing everything in his power to better the life of Geralt of Rivia? How long had he sung his songs in an attempt to mend the Witcher's reputation; how long had he offered himself on a silver platter only to have it thrown back in his face with the complaint that he was the bane of Geralt's existence.

He squeezes out the tears in his eyes and smacks his palms into the gravel road, which only helps to pierce a sharp rock into the tender hollow of his palm. He winces and drops his head in defeat, the tears fall and dampen the dirt, and he unravels for just a moment before climbing to his feet and walking on.

He's carrying absolutely nothing but his lute, and as the sun slowly falls towards the horizon ahead of him, he wonders if he should keep walking forward in the hopes of finding a tavern, or if he should seek shelter in a thicket of trees and hope the cold doesn't take him during the night. Or a bear.

He walks another four or five miles and as darkness creeps in, he moves off the trail and into the terrifying night, wrapping himself up as tight as he can in his own arms and desperately trying to fall asleep against the trunk of a tree.

He's both relieved and annoyed when he wakes up to the sound of birds calling and discovers he hasn't been swallowed up by the earth overnight. He squints against the bright yellow sunlight spilling through the leaves above him, and with a groan, pushes to his feet and keeps walking.

-

It takes him two days to reach the foot of the mountain where he finds a tavern he can afford a room at, and promptly falls asleep for another two.

-

He wakes up feeling completely unrested, but it's not a tiredness of the body. If he were up for poetry right now, he'd write something about the wearisome ache of a broken soul, but he really can't be fucked, so he doesn't. Instead, he throws what little money he has at the barkeep and chews down some stale bread. The barkeep asks why his eyes are red with an accusatory tone, and Jaskier tells him to fuck off.

He walks from the tavern and back onto the same gravel road, and decides which way to go. He could either head back North, towards Oxenfurt, and possibly find some comfort in the arms of people from his past, or he could travel South, towards Toussaint, further away from everything he's ever known. He chooses the latter, because what was the point in going back to his past when everything and everyone in it had abandoned him.

-

Jaskier had never told Geralt about his bloodline. He wonders why. A part of him always considered that the Witcher might brand him a monster and kill him on the spot, but Jaskier wonders if Geralt would ever really do that. He'd seen Geralt find mercy before, seen him refuse to label a monster a monster until it acted as one, so why would Jaskier ever think he was in any danger? The worst thing he'd ever done was sleep with someone else's wife.

Or maybe it was something darker, hidden deeper, that Jaskier refused to admit. That there was a particular feeling that he struggled to ignore, that he tried to cover over with women and wine and music and anything. A feeling of power that lay dormant deep within him, that felt more uncontrollable and unpredictable than it ever had before, that seemed to feed and grow larger from the heartache he held in his heart. The feeling of mischief and chaos and reckless disregard for.. well, anything. It reared its ugly head within his soul and he desperately tried to push it down, force himself to smile and sing a stupid song, and it only made the force within him louder.

-

He's less than a mile from the tavern's door when, walking quietly as the wind pushes his hair around his face, the smell of earth and coming rain in the air, when a huge cracking sound makes him cover his ears. The air around him seems to pull into a vortex and ignites into a circle of purple flame, from which one Yennefer of Vengerberg steps through.

"Oh," she frowns, as she looks upon him and then the very empty landscape around him.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Jaskier asks, taking his hands from his ears and gaping at her.

"I was looking for Geralt," she says, smoothing her dress. "I thought he'd come this way."

"Of course you were. Well, you found me instead," Jaskier replies. "I'm terribly sorry for the disappointment." 

"Hm," she looks him up and down, the sun beaming overhead, and the very apparent lack of a pack across his shoulder to carry supplies in. "You'll die out here."

"Would that be so bad?" he asks.

"Fine," she says, her hands moving out in front of her and the air beginning to vortex once more.

"Wait!" Jaskier says loudly as the portal roars open. He looks between it and Yennefer and asks, "Could you take me to Toussaint? To the city, or near it at least?"

Yennefer sighs and beckons at him with her head. "Follow me."

Yennefer drops him off in Beauclair with a curious searching of her eyes into his, and then disappears again. _Good,_ he thinks. _One less reminder of Geralt of Rivia._ Even the name passing through his mind has his stomach twisting with a furious ache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find the skyrim reference


	3. part three

Jaskier dreams of a land, much like the Continent, but brighter, _more beautiful_. Where sunbeams dance on the surface of crystal clear lagoons like they might a diamond necklace; where huge tree roots twist and tangle their way beneath grass, greener than he'd ever seen before; where butterflies and birds fly in droves through the air and fields of yellow flowers stretch as far as the eye can see. He dreams of an orange sunset glowing through soft pink and purple clouds as it meets the horizon; caves lit up at night by the bright blue glow of mushrooms lining their walls; and magnificent, shimmering castles perched atop mountains as waterfalls crash down them and into rippling pools below.

And it feels like home.

-

He wakes in a cold sweat.

What had started as a pleasant dream about a faraway land had quickly escalated into a nightmare - the sun drenched sky turned dark behind thundering storm clouds and an eerie green mist. One of dirty hands clawing up through dirt and reaching out to him, hissing whispers filling his ears, _come, come, you are we, one of us._ Suddenly, the yellow flowers all wilted and died, and the twisted tree roots snaked their way through the soil and around his legs, dragging him as he scrambled and clawed at the dirt. And they pulled him, screaming, into the blackened lagoon, deep below the surface, until light could be seen no more.

His breath comes ragged and hard as he scrubs his hands across his face, shaking the nightmare away and stumbling from the bed towards the small bucket of water by the side of the door. He uses the cold water to wash the sweat from his face and hair, the splash of it against his cheeks shooting flashes into his mind of sinking further and further into deep water. He gives a heavy sigh and uses a small cloth to pat himself dry, and slowly gets dressed before leaving the room.

"I trust you slept well," says the gruff voice of the farmer as Jaskier exits the small room he'd stayed in overnight. 

"I did, thank you," Jaskier replies, ignoring the soil-covered fingers clawing at him in the back of his mind somewhere.

"You're welcome to stay for a few more nights, if you need," the farmer continues, pottering about the small cottage and pulling on a large pair of boots. "But I'm afraid I might have to ask for some coin, if any more than that."

Jaskier shakes his head. "I won't impose," he says, collecting his lute and holding it awkwardly against his chest. "Thank you again, for letting me stay here. Your kindness will not be forgotten."

The farmer waves at him dismissively, muttering, "We look out for each other here."

Jaskier gives him a small nod and a smile. "Many blessings to you and your farm. Perhaps we will meet again."

-

He decides to head to the market, although he's not exactly sure why, because he has not a coin to his name. He holds his lute close as he walks aimlessly between the stalls, observing trinkets and fabrics, mouth watering over fresh fruits and vegetables. _Gods, he was hungry._

He makes his way through the market and decides to stop into the tavern, hopeful that he may be able to offer an exchange of goods with the barkeep - some lively music in exchange for a warm soup or vegetables. Instead, the barkeep tells him he'll have no customers till the evening, and he can't afford to give away free food to every needy peasant who walked through the doors. Jaskier looked down at his outfit and Elven lute and wondered what made the barkeep think him a peasant. 

"Not even a few pieces of bread?" Jaskier asks desperately, to which the barkeep responds with some colourful language and a crude hand gesture. He glares at Jaskier until he sighs in defeat and leaves the bar, and as he does, a small woman stops him with a hand on his arm.

"I'm headed home to feed my husband and wee boy, if you'd care to join us," she says in a gentle voice.

"Oh no, I couldn't possibly-"

"Nonsense," she replies, giving him a bright smile. "There's plenty of food, and you look mighty hungry. Join us, please."

And Jaskier's really in no position to decline, so he doesn't.

"Where did you say you were from?" the husband asks him as they sit down at the table, a beautiful spread of fruits and bread laid out before them.

"I don't really have a home," Jaskier says, realising how suspicious it sounds as the man narrows his eyes. "I mean, I'm _from_ Lettenhove, originally. But I travel. Or, I used to travel," he adds with a frown, intentionally leaving out the part about a Witcher. "I'm not sure why I came here. I guess I didn't want to go home."

The man, seemingly satisfied with this answer, nods. "My wife and I have lived here ten years," he says proudly. "And our little Samuel was born here," he adds, messing the hair of the young boy beside sitting him. He couldn't be older than four or five, and he seemed shy, barely making eye contact with Jaskier.

"Is it just the three of you, then?" Jaskier asks, popping berries into his mouth one by one.

"Yes," the woman says, with a drip of sadness. "We'd been hoping for another one," she says, smiling fondly down at her son, "But.. destiny, it seems, has other plans."

Jaskier scoffs. "Fuck destiny," he says, and suddenly clasps his hands over his mouth, looking between the man and the child. "Oh, oh gods I'm sorry."

The man laughs, chewing off a large piece of bread and swallowing it down. "It's fine, lad."

"I'm sorry," Jaskier repeats again, but this time he means to show empathy for the couple's fertility struggle. "You seem like fine parents. I really do hope destiny," his teeth grinding on the word, "changes her mind. More children need to be born into loving homes."

The pair seem pleased with this, and when he eventually says he must be going, the woman offers Jaskier a pack of food supplies and tells him he's always welcome back.

-

He walks around Beauclair for a few days with no real purpose carrying his feet forward, except for the fear of what lay behind.

He dips sparingly into the supplies he'd been given, and spends a good few hours just sitting at the bank of a river, staring into the blue water and enjoying the warm sun on his skin. With his eyes closed, he sees the tree roots dragging him into the deep, and he wonders what would happen if he didn't fight it, and let himself go.

A loud, hacking cough pulls him from his trance. "Hello?" he says, looking around him, eyes falling on a frail man, doubled over. A cart full of sacks and barrels stand still behind him, and the man grips onto it to steady himself.

"Shit," Jaskier says, moving from the rivers edge and stepping closer to the man. "Are you okay, sir?"

The man coughs again. "Aye, aye," he says, waving at Jaskier dismissively. "Just give me a moment, I'll be good as new."

Jaskier stands by awkwardly as the man clears his throat and stands up straight, and he does _not_ look good as anything. His skin is pale, sweat beading at his temples, delicate skin below his eyes sunken and reddened. Jaskier almost recoils. "Do you need some help, carrying that back?" he asks, pointing at the cart.

The man shakes his head, looking stoic and squaring his shoulders, before another round of coughing has him clutching at his chest.

"Here," Jaskier says, taking the cart handles in his hands and pulling it up onto its wheels. "Show me where to go."

They make it back to the man's hut and he collapses into a small wooden chair almost instantly. He takes several huge swigs out of a water jug on the table and pants, all while Jaskier watches with a confused expression across his face.

"What's the matter with you?" Jaskier asks, hoping it didn't come out sounding too insensitive. "Are you ill?"

"Working in a coal mine for thirty years will do that to a man," he replies, and raises his head to look Jaskier in the eye. "Thank you for your help."

Jaskier nods and stands to his feet. "I really must go, it's getting late, and I've yet to find a bed for the night."

"Stay here," the man offers, pointing down the small hall of his hut. "I've got a spare bed, since my wife left me. We were sleeping separately, towards the end."

Jaskier's heart twists and turns and he wonders if the man's life could get any sadder. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. We'll call it even," he says. "Make yourself at home."

-

_Two months later, the town will boast of a farmer who could grow and harvest vegetables rain hail or shine; an infertile women who hadn't bled for two moons; and a gravely ill man who woke up with what one might consider a brand new pair of lungs._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah this is probably gonna be more than 5 chapters


	4. part four

Jaskier keeps having nightmares.

In them, he's always being dragged, pulled, heaved into the underworld; haunted and tormented and plagued. The world starts off beautiful, and pure, and bright, and then it turns into shadowy night and sharp nailed claws dig into his chest and tear out his heart and show him who he really is.

And distressingly, it feels like home.

-

He spends the next few weeks in Beauclair, drifting from person to person and place to place. Some people are kind to him, and others are not.

Like that arrogant fucking barkeep who wouldn't give him a measly piece of bread. Jaskier tries not to get caught up on it, he really does, but he can't help the seething red that boils through his body when he thinks of it. Can't help the way his lip snarls and his body feels both heavy and light - or maybe it's his head - spinning with the thought of storming back into the bar and kicking the barkeep into the dirt, snapping a few of his fingers, stabbing his dagger into his shoulder. Gods, he really wanted him to suffer, to bleed.

Jaskier blinks, and the black fog clouding his mind slowly dissipates, and he finds himself exhaling a breath he didn't know he was holding.

He's been finding it harder, as the weeks go by, to shove the dark part of his mind to the back, to ignore it and carry on with a chipper smile and a whistle. He finds it harder to ignore the anger that crashes over him, the pain and the hurt. And he wonders, how much he must have really loved Geralt, to be this heartbroken. To have this much anger inside, swelling around with nowhere to escape to, bubbling out in violent thoughts and nightmares. 

He snaps the pencil he'd been holding in his hand, and looks down at it with a blank stare.

 _Fuck, he'd written nothing_.

He sighs and packs the notebook back into his supply bag, and decides to wander. The sun was warm, but not hot enough that walking was a chore, and his legs ached from sitting on the broken wooden bench seat all morning as he tried to write.. anything.

He walks past the city borders and follows a small trail that runs alongside the woods, enjoying the heat on his skin and the singing chirps of birds overhead. He walks slowly, in no rush, eyes drifting across coloured flowers and up the huge trunks of trees into the canopies above. He sighs.

He walks for a while, with no purpose as usual, until he comes across a strange circle of rocks, in different shapes and sizes, but all weather beaten and covered with moss. Driven by curiosity, he steps off the trail and towards the rocks, following the circle around them on the outside, observing the sharp edges of some and the almost soft curves of others. And then he steps inside.

-

His vision tunnels until black is all he can see, and just as quickly as it caves in on him, it fades away. He looks around. He's... still in the circle.

He puts his hand to his forehead and wonders if he needs to eat something, and as he twists his body to swing his pack around to his front, his eyes catch on the scene behind him. Yellow flowers, in fields, sway gently in the wind. The grass beneath his feet looks too green, the sky above too blue. Butterflies hang in the air and two dance their way around him, his eyes follow them as they go. He blinks against the bright colours and slightly hazy horizon, and before he can step out of the circle, a man and a woman approach him.

The man has shoulder length dark hair that falls in waves, and piercing grey eyes that look Jaskier up and down. His frame is tall, with broad shoulders but narrow hips, and he wears a fitted green tunic with brown breeches; a knee length brown robe clasped at his chest with a silver brooch in the shape of a deer's head. The woman has straight brown hair that falls well past her shoulders, and blue eyes that rival the brightness of the sky above. She's smaller than the man, and she wears a deep blue dress with long sleeves that stops just short of the ground; a short, pale blue cape hangs at her back and clasps at the front of her neck, with a gold brooch in the shape of a hare. They're both incredibly beautiful, he thinks, and then wonders why they wouldn't be when the rest of this world was too.

"I told you he'd find us," the man says to the woman with a smug smile, crossing his arms. 

"Of course he would," she replies, rolling her eyes. "Although I expected it to take him longer."

"With his blood?" the man scoffs, looking Jaskier up and down. "I'm surprised it took him _this long._ "

"Well, one way or another, he's here now," the woman says, seemingly annoyed at the man's constant rebuttals, putting her hand on her hips.

"I'm sorry," Jaskier recognises his own voice, although he's not sure when he started speaking. "But who are you? And where.. am I?"

"I'm Vaala," the woman says, before the man reaches out and smacks her arm. "What? We can't tell him our names?"

The man pauses for a moment before sighing and unfolding his arms. "I'm Aedas."

"And... where am I?" Jaskier asks again, looking around. He looks down and steps his feet on the grass a few times, checking that it's real.

Vaala gives him a peculiar look with slightly narrowed eyes. "Well I think you already know that, don't you?"

Jaskier's heart pounds, because he definitely remembers the yellow flowers and the butterflies and the green, green grass. He looks past the pair and sees the mountains in the distance, and the unmistakable castles that sit atop them.

And he's never had a name for it, but he knows. He swallows. "This is... Faerieland, right?"

Aedas scoffs, nose turned up at the word. "We prefer Aelidalar."

"That's quite a tongue twister," Jaskier interjects, and then wonders if he should have stayed quiet when the man's eyes darken to a smokey grey colour.

Vaala just laughs and tips her head, giving Jaskier a playful smile. "He's funny."

Aedas glares at her. "Just because he's one of us doesn't mean he's _one of us_ ," he hisses, and the words from Jaskier's dream smack into him.

"One of you?" he says, mouth going dry.

Aedas sighs, and Jaskier can feel him growing impatient. "One of us, a Fae. But you know that - don't play coy, Julian."

"It's Jaskier," Jaskier says, standing up a little taller and locking eyes with Aedas. They stare one another down for a few moments before Vaala waves her hands between them.

"Stop," she says, breaking the silence. "We're not here to argue over names."

Jaskier turns his gaze to her. "What are you here for then?" 

"Well, you, of course," she says matter of factly, as if she's puzzled he would even need to ask. And as she reaches a delicate hand out to take his, as it crosses the threshold of the circle of rocks, Jaskier's mind seems to splinter and break. Instead of soft creamy skin, he sees a bony, greyed hand - more like a claw - with sharp nails reaching out for him. And suddenly the dreams make sense. This world wasn't beautiful at all.

But it feels like home.

So he takes Vaala's hand, and lets himself be lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys i've got no idea where i'm going with this but i LOVE it and i hope you do too <3


End file.
